


the white lady

by deliarium



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Family, Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-31 01:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21039629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliarium/pseuds/deliarium
Summary: Walter's encounters with the apparition of Joyce Blythe, over the years.





	the white lady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).

Walter is seven years old when Mother first tells him about his sister Joyce—"Joy" for short—a sweet, pale, wee lady with starry gray eyes just like his and Mother's, who had mysteriously gone away some years before Walter was born. Though she is smiling fondly as she reminisces over the first-born child of the House of Dreams, Mother's voice is tinged with sorrow bespoken of unfathomable depths. Walter thinks it's rather odd that the word _ joy _ should bring tears to Mother's eyes, as it has always seemed utterly _ impossible _ for someone like Mother, whose presence exudes laughter and gaiety, to ever look so sad. 

In his moments of idle daydreaming, lounging underneath the great birch trees in the Hollow, Walter often tries to imagine what Joyce would look like. "Joy" makes him think of bright golden sunshine and windblown daffodils, and so initially he envisions her as having splendid, gleaming cords of blonde hair, vaguely similar to Mrs. Ford's—that is, until Jem, with his practical older brother wisdom, points out that nobody in their family has yellow hair, forcing Walter to reluctantly revise this mental image. He has now decided she would have fine dark hair like his, a small pale face peppered over with a constellation of freckles, and an impish red crease of a mouth that would forever be smiling or laughing. He thinks it would be rather nice to have a big sister around, especially when Jem particularly annoys him or makes fun of him for writing poetry. A big sister would understand him, he decides with conviction.

He still doesn't exactly understand the reason why Joyce went away, other than that she had suffered from some vague illness. Still, the very idea of this long-lost Blythe sibling holds a strange, enduring fascination for him that he can never quite explain. Walter had once heard Mrs. Elliot solemnly say that Joyce is in a "better place," and he had briefly wondered aloud if he could visit Joyce in this place someday. (Susan, overhearing him, had for some reason become angry and said he shouldn't say things like that.) 

Yet as the years pass, Walter could swear that he sometimes hears the sound of a young girl singing and dancing in the attic of Ingleside—glimpses her, in the periphery of his vision, floating in the shadows of the hallway to restore Nan's lost bow to her bedside table, or Father's misplaced watch to his desk—spies her feeding their dog scraps of food under the table at dinnertime (an offense that Jem vehemently denies later, becoming annoyed when nobody except Walter believes him). On the rare occasion when he manages to catch her directly within his line of sight—albeit for the briefest of moments—she looks right at him and smiles, then presses a finger to her lips before whisking off, into some unknown ether. But he decides never to mention this to anyone, as they would all tease him even more than usual for possessing an overactive imagination.

*

Walter is twenty years old when he sees her again, lying in a hospital bed after several weeks of grappling with a merciless typhoid infection, his body all but sapped of its last stores of energy. Father remains strangely tight-lipped whenever Walter works up the courage to ask about his prognosis, but Walter can discern from his expression that his condition has become gravely serious, and only worsening by the day. And Walter is so tired of pain and suffering, tired of the lonely nights quarantined in a hospital ward away from his friends and family, of not knowing whether each day he wakes up will be his last.

He awakens one particularly dreadful night plagued by hours of fitful tossing and turning and intermittent retching, his sheets soaked through with cold sweat, to the sight of an unfamiliar young woman standing by his bed, dressed in garbs of luminous white—not like any of the various nurses he has seen around the ward. Her black hair is arranged in a long, elegant plait falling over her shoulder; in the darkness of the room he can very faintly make out her face, partially illuminated by a silvery shaft of moonlight spilling through the window. She lays her hand on his forehead; her calm touch briefly allays the searing throb of fever within his temples, like being doused with cool water.

Her eyes are long-lashed, deep pools of grey—so like his—open and compassionate. Her mouth spreads in an impish smile that stirs a dim inkling of recognition within Walter's memory.

"Joyce." His voice, thin and frail, comes out as a rasp.

"Hello, Walter." 

"It's time for me to go, isn't it?" he asks muzzily, forcing himself to concentrate on her presence as his feverish mind threatens to swirl in and out of consciousness. "I can't—I can't do this any longer." The unspoken, impossible words stick, helplessly, in his throat. _ Please take me with you_.

Joyce gently strokes his hair back from his forehead, which is slick with pearls of sweat. "My dear brother. You still have so much life in you yet—so much love to give and bear, and all that beautiful poetry left to write. So don't give up."

"I can't write poetry anymore. It—hurts too much to think nowadays." He pauses to let out a small cough, then looks up at her again, brows knit in contemplation. "But I did have so many things that I wanted to write..."

"Tell me about them."

And so he tells her, deep into the night, until the dull pain ebbs away from his bones and he is able to sleep peacefully at last.

When he awakens again, in the gentle yellow light of daybreak, it is Mother who is at his bedside, her face lined with worry.

"You mustn't fear, Mother," Walter murmurs, reaching out to touch her hand. "Last night I saw her—saw her all in white—and she told me it wasn't my time yet—that I would live."

"Who told you that, darling?" Mother asks, in a low, soothing tone.

"Joyce. Joy." His eyes close again.

"Poor kid. It seems he's still delirious," Gilbert says later, when Anne slips out into the hallway.

"No, Gilbert," replies Anne softly. "I remember when _ you _ were ill, when I first realized I loved you, and how terribly dark the future seemed to me then—it only shows that we _ must _ hold onto hope, no matter how dire it seems. And—oh Gil, he said he saw Joyce—"

"Ah," Gilbert says, and they both fall quiet.

Walter's fever finally breaks the next day, and over the following weeks he begins to recover rapidly enough to satisfy all his doctors at the hospital. "Blythes were always a hardy sort," Father remarks approvingly. His bedside table starts to overflow with delectable baked sweets from Susan and his siblings, effusive letters and flowers from the Merediths, and various tokens of appreciation from his students in Lowbridge. Outside his window the maple trees are bursting with the first vibrant shades of autumn, and even the songbirds seem to be trilling more brightly and merrily than he has ever heard them sing. In his convalescence he discovers within himself a deeper, more wondrous capacity of sheer _ love _ and exuberance for life, in all its aching sweetness and glory.

And when he feels strong enough to start writing poetry again, he takes out his notebook and writes at the top of a fresh blank page, _ On Joy_.

*

Walter is twenty-three years old when she appears to him for the last time, as early morning begins to throw pale, scattered light over the trenches of Courcelette.

He has been overseas for more than a year now, and in those intervening months he has experienced and witnessed countless, inexpressible horrors, has seen so many of his brethren gruesomely injured and slain by bullets or shrapnel. He feels numb all over by an exhaustion that runs deeper than the physical, shaped by a multitude of invisible scars that will never fully heal, that shall blacken his memories for as long as he lives_—_if he lives. But he cannot allow any of this to show, as others in the regiment have gradually decided to look to him for guidance and fortitude. _ The legendary Walter Blythe...decorated for bravery...wrote that famous poem—you know the one....._

Dawn approaches. His fellow soldiers speak in hushed, awed tones of the new weapon that people say will win them the war. Walter manages to steal a glimpse of the tanks all arranged in line, looming huge and monstrous in the distance; he is just barely able to suppress an involuntary shiver, and flinches his eyes away. He thinks with an abrupt, wistful pang of his family whom he shall never see again, of the enormity of grief he is about to inflict upon his mother, of Rilla and Una's heartbroken expressions when they read his letter. He had made a promise to always keep faith, but he cannot help but feel somewhat bereft and isolated now, as the hour of his impending demise draws nearer.

It is then that he turns around and sees Joyce standing there beside him_—_her presence bathed in a gentle white glow, a chilly wind sweeping through her long, dark hair. Her grey eyes, reflecting the morning light, are warm and placid; she is clasping a small handful of his beloved asters, as pale as moonshine. The other soldiers in his unit continue to wander past her in a flurry of restless chatter, unseeing.

And Walter knows now, more than ever, that his time in this world is coming to a close.

He gazes at her calmly and steadily, and for a moment he is no longer a mere soldier, doomed to be another faceless casualty among many, another sacrifice for the greater cause. In this moment it is as though his whole life and being _ matters _in its individual essence, at least to someone here who can see him.

After a brief period of silence Walter leans a hand out to her, asking quietly, "Will you come with me?" He has long ceased to be afraid of dying, but—all of a sudden—he is rather afraid of being alone when it happens.

Joyce responds with a smile, and puts her hand in his.

They crouch in the darkness of the trench among the other soldiers, waiting, as the skies lighten with the sunrise; eventually there is a distant roar of shouting and gunfire, and at the commander's signal they go, together, over the top and into the light.


End file.
